Some Before/After Restoration Comparisons From The STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION Season Two Blu-ray Set!!

The Blu-ray issuance of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION's second season is right around the corner (December 4 - preorder HERE!!) and we now have some lovely comparison shots demonstrating before meticulous restoration/ after meticulous restoration of a few choice episodes.

The first season Blu-ray set of the show was a truly astounding accomplishment - I believe I said it "set the Gold Standard for undertakings of this nature" - so I'm hugely excited to see what the TNG Blu-ray/restroation/extras gangs have in store for us this time around. TNG Season 2 features the intense introduction of The Borg (in Q Who) and an expanded version of the fan-favorite The Measure of a Man - I'm expecting these (and other) episodes will nicely uphold the lofty AV quality established by the Season One Blu set, and emerge as nothing short of breathtaking.

Here are a few shots. All images are EMBIGGENABLE...

Before restoration for Blu-ray...

After...

After...

That last image pretty much sums up my week. Quite nicely, actually. More in the coming weeks! Stay tuned...

I remember watching a lot of these episodes on TV around their original air dates. TNG is what introduced me to Trek. I love it.
But my God (Or should "my Q"?) the Blu-rays are simply outstanding. Knowing what they had to do in order to properly bring TNG to HD, I just never thought it would happen. Too much money. But damn did they fucking do it.
The re-composited effects are simply outstanding.
Can't wait for season 2 and on.

The show was NOT filmed that way, converting it to that aspect ratio would do one of two things. First, show you all the people, equipment, undecorated sets, etc. that was out of frame, which would look completely ridiculous. Two, if the 4:3 was stretched or edited to a 16:9 ratio, you would actually LOSE huge sections of the image and/or have a weirdly stretched version of the show we know and love (exactly like what you get when it's on tv in 4:3 and you use your tv's settings to make it fullscreen).
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Widescreen is a fairly new idea for home viewing. It's only just recently, like in the last few years, that everything was produced in that fashion. There will always be shows that were produced in years past that won't be converted, because to do so is either pointless or impossible. The first remastered season of TNG was a freakin' marvel! I was far more blown away than I ever expected I would be. In some cases it was like watching a new show. Like, I never realized some of the walls in the Enterprise corridors were lightly reflective. That completely freaked me out. Really looking forward to checking out the next six seasons as they're released.

hotline set up within 24 hours, no hoops to jump through, no having to hold on the line when I called, just had to read the serial number and give my address, no charge, no having to send the defective discs back, they arrived in a couple of weeks
Plus they gave out a free collectible postcard that is unique to the disc replacement program
It was classy

I had no intention of purchasing the single seasons (I was going to wait for the full run set, as well), but I received season one as a gift (think I'm getting S2 that was as well). I've watched every minute of the S1 set and had ZERO issues of any kind. So apparently they fixed everything pretty quickly.

I'm not a Wesley Crusher hater, either. But where pretty much everything with Crusher seemed convenient and/or forced (which even I will admit), right up to and including his departure, which I always thought was a great F.U. to the complainers (we'll right him off the show for you, but we're making him a bad ass, time traveling, near omnipotent super hero guy in doing so), Guinan was just the chill ass bartender who was there when you needed a chill ass bartender. There are many episodes where she didn't even play a major role in the events moving the story forward. She was just there in ten forward, chillin', serving drinks. Even the way they worked her long lifespan/past into Generations never felt forced (in a movie that definitely had some forced elements). Guinan is one of the best reoccurring guest parts in a long running series that I can think of. I won't say the best, but definitely way up there.

Or many revealed would be a better word. But there is no way all the things I noticed are different are new special effects. For whatever reason, the sets, set dressing and props just look incredibly different in certain shots, scenes or episodes.

CBS Action is txing TOS with the new 16:9 effects and cropped 4:3 series footage. Looks ok as USUALLY only 70-80 % of camera negative is used to make a 4:3 image - ie a decent cameraman will always allow "extra" height and width when shooting so there SHOULD be enough negative space to create a 16:9 image for most shots. Check out any movie these days and "tops of heads" are nearly alway cropped - usually for dramatic purpose. Just a thought!

...that extra space is filled with boom mics, unfinished sets/set dressing, non-acting, non-costumed people and just general stuff in regards to TNG. The only option with be to do cg special effects over everything in the shot that wasn't supposed to be there, which is cost prohibitive and couldn't be done for every episode anyway. And whoever it is at CBS Action who decided to do that with TOS should be shot. It looks fine the way it is, as does TNG. Drives me batty, ten years ago you had to explain wide screen to a majority of tv owners. We've all been watching out entire lives without it. Everything doesn't need to be in that format.

Thought she was a great part of the show, and as a new species represented a genuinely interesting and nuanced species (so often alien species were just caricatures of some single personality trait), and thought her dynamic with Picard was neat as well.